How light waves demonstrate their wave nature by reflection, refraction, and diffraction.

Here is a large collection of simple science class activities for understanding the physics of light.

In this direct instruction lesson plan, students draw sketches in their science notebooks in order to make sense of wave properties. Resources include a slideshow presentation on the properties of waves and multiple examples of student...

How far would you have to travel so that the light of the full sun would provide "daylight" no brighter than twilight on Earth? This project describes a method to verify the inverse square law: how light, sound, electrical signals, and...

Students will use a variety of objects to participate in a partner activity and communicate using light and sound waves. Resources include a video, pictures and videos of the lesson in action, and examples of student work.

Students investigate the underlying causes of two-point source interference pattern. They also discover that the spatial separation between the antinodal and nodal lines in the pattern is related to the wavelength of the waves.

After looking at a representative two-point source interference pattern with accompanying order numbers, students investigate the rationale behind the numbering system, and develop some mathematical equations that relate the features of...

Through illustrated practice problems and video clips, students learn about polarization of light.

In this physics tutorial, students learn how materials that have been permeated by specific pigments will selectively absorb specific frequencies of light in order to produce a desired appearance.

Visible light waves are the only electromagnetic waves we can see. We see these waves as the colors of the rainbow. Each color has a different wavelength. Red has the longest wavelength and violet has the shortest wavelength. When all...

In this experiment, you will measure the speed of light using a microwave oven, some egg white, and a ruler. This short project proves to be an extremely interesting choice for a science lab, with pictures for illustration, and thorough...

Help Dracula find out about light waves by using a virtual radiometer.

A detailed discussion of the nature of light, how it can travel through a vacuum, and how the speed of light is affected when light travels through a medium.

Students will focus on the interaction of sunlight with atmospheric particles to produce blue skies and red sunsets.

[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Students investigate the fundamentals of light including its source, how it is defined for measurements, how we perceive color, and the situations that make an...

Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization. They see how a beam of light is refracted (bent) through various transparent mediums. While learning how a...

In this project, you will investigate the physics of standing waves on guitar strings. You will learn about the different modes (i.e., patterns) of vibration that can be produced on a string, and you will figure out how to produce the...

Light is an example of an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves can travel through the vacuum of interstellar space. They do not depend on an external medium-unlike a mechanical wave such as a sound wave which must travel through...

Strike a key on the piano, and you hear the string vibrating. Just about any object vibrates when it's knocked, but how much and how fast? This project helps you find out. You'll build a simple light-sensing circuit for measuring the...

In this lesson, the electromagnetic spectrum is explained and students learn that visible light makes up only a portion of this wide spectrum. Students also learn that engineers use electromagnetic waves for many different applications.

Describes the characteristics of light, presents two formulas for calculating its wavelength, and provides a table of the different wavelength ranges across the electromagnetic spectrum.

In this introduction to light energy, students learn about reflection and refraction as they learn that light travels in wave form. Through hands-on activities, they see how prisms, magnifying glasses and polarized lenses work. They also...

Kids learn about the behavior of light as a wave in the science of physics including reflection, refraction, and diffraction.

Fourth graders learn how light waves bend differently in different mediums.